Category Archives: False memory

The following are my opinions and not to be taken as a measure of my character. This is but a blog. Feel free to read this blog entry at your own risk. I do not claim to be a professional on any of these views. Many of the views discussed are speculations. I hope to present some original research that I have conducted.

As of late, I’ve been considering how schizoaffective disorder works.

Schizoaffective disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a mental disorder characterized by recurring abnormal mood and psychotic components. The mood component may be elevated or depressed (bipolar or depressive subtype), or simultaneously elevated and depressed (mixed episode), and these abnormal mood components alternate with, or occur together with, psychotic symptoms. For a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder to be valid, according to current DSM criteria (but not ICD-10 criteria), there must be a period of at least two weeks of psychosis without mood disorder, and these symptoms cannot be due to medication(s), substance use or another medical condition.[1][2] In the ICD-10, schizoaffective disorder is seen as episodic, whereas in the DSM-IV it is treated as an uninterrupted illness. [3]

source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoaffective_disorder

It would appear that schizoaffective disorder involves beliefs, psychosis, and mood variation. However, what I’m currently interested in is how schizoaffective disorder relates to false memories and forgetting.

Delusions are fixed ‘false beliefs’ and, although a hallmark feature of schizophrenia, no previous study has examined if delusions might be related to ‘false memories’. We used the classic Deese-Roediger-McDermott (DRM) paradigm to compare false memory production in schizophrenia patients who were currently experiencing delusions (ED), patients not experiencing delusions (ND) and healthy control participants. The ED group recalled twice as many false-positive memories (i.e., memory for words not previously seen) as both the controls and crucially, the ND group. Both patient groups also recognised fewer correct words than the healthy controls and both showed greater confidence in their false memories; however, on the recognition task, the ED group made more false-negative (i.e. rejecting previously seen words) high confidence responses than the ND group.

It would appear that in 2010, research has been conducted in relation to false memories and schizophrenia. It would appear that the results were in belief that people with a past psychiatric disorder, such as schizophrenia, did show a level of false memory development.

However, of current interest to me is how the false memory is generated.

From August to October of 2010, I researched semantics and episodic memory at the University of Illinois at Chicago. I often held talks with a professor after class, which was one he was teaching to me, and I became extremely fixated on studying semantics and episodic memory. The reason for this was because I had come to recognize that I held a false memory of a woman: Let’s call her Danny. However, in recognizing that I held a false memory of Danny, I noticed I held a false memory of Dani.

The women held similar characteristics: gothic, music interests, skin color, heritage, some personal habits, and so on. As such, a good blow to the head could possibly make a person mix up the two people. As such, with a blow to the head, an individual could misattribute and confabulate about who is who, thus mixing up the two people.

And there was a time when I did confabulate… but to myself without talking to either Dani or Danny.

The way I was able to recognize this, however, was that I had kept an online journal. I had also kept various journals throughout time. As such, I had been able to review my past: This review occurred sometime in August of 2010. Once I recognized that I held a false memory of Danny, I noticed I held a false memory of Dani. Perhaps it was my level of intelligence, cognitive speed, and level of critical thinking while in academia during my super-senior year that allowed me to quickly realize this issue and be amazed.

From having recognized these things, I considered that it all must be tied to semantics and episodic memory. It would be simply enough to say that an individual is schizophrenic, but in general, the issue delves into the cognitive neurobiology involved with semantics and episodic memory or, in other words, language and memory.

I dated Danny, but I did not date Dani.

So, I forgot Danny, and I forgot Dani. I had developed a false memory of both individuals.

But the real question here is why?

Well, I have a hypothesis about that, and my hypothesis is psychosis occurred. Once psychosis occurs, the memories and psychological contents belonging to particular individuals, identity, and how and where they are attributed can be re-arranged. The misattribution is then later catalyzed by dysphoric mania until a person has taken on false memories… and in taking on false memories, the person has become a new person with new memories (albeit false memories).

So, it would appear the process works like this:

1. Person encounters emotionally distressing stimuli that makes them paranoid
2. A paranoid belief is generated
3. Further stimuli may increase the paranoid belief, thus generating confidence in it validity
4. Enough stimuli causes an individual to have a psychotic break
5. The psychotic break then may or may not have further stimuli that leads to dysphoric mania
6. The dysphoric mania leads to transference and re-arrangements of mental contents, thus generating false memories
7. Once the dysphoric mania settles down, the individual has become a false person with false memories

Something that should be considered here, however, is motivated forgetting. In other words, what level of inhibition exists prior to the dysphoric mania for an individual to suppress the paranoid belief. For if an individual were not to suppress the paranoid belief, then some possible outcomes could occur: (1) the individual takes hold of the paranoid belief and freaks out on the emotionally distressing stimuli, then the stimuli is gone; (2) the individual takes hold of the paranoid beliefs, freaks out on the emotionally distressing stimuli, and then argumentation occurs to reduce the confidence of the paranoid belief (the stimuli is allowed to stick around but is now altered).

There is another possibility, and that would mean being a stoic, freeing whatever is bothering you, and giving little reason and explanation while not feeding into any emotional appeals.

It could be said that the person has dissociative identity disorder, but I think that would be an incorrect categorization. It would appear that a better categorization would be “false identity disorder,” whereby an individual is not him or herself, because he or she holds false memories in relation to events of his or her past.

For me, personally, I was in my late teens or so. I had underwent dysphoric mania, and I had an increased desire to learn the Japanese language by writing Kanji on my walls. Perhaps this was some outcome of the dysphoric mania. This happened after Danny and I broke up (it was a long-distance relationship). However, I later met a girl named Dani. I held a paranoid belief that Dani was Danny, because of similarities; but I dismissed the paranoid belief. Somehow, over time, I started to consider that Dani was Danny (they sure did have overlapping qualities): As such, the problem becomes over-lapping qualities or being able to find the similarities in things.

Next in question is how can a person determine if he or she has a false identity?

As such, this know goes into the realm that a false memory is a logic error. If an individual knows he or she holds at least one false memory, then it is true that the person also holds another false memory that he or she may not be aware of. However, with holding a false memory, a person must be made aware that a memory is false. As such, there is a level of debugging to occur.

For me, I was able to self-debug in 2010, because I was moving around stuff from one computer to another. I was moving around journals, pictures, and other things to a backup server. I was motivated to do this, because I wanted to have a linux server that could do grand-daddy backups. In doing that, I reviewed some of the stuff that was there. That was when I noticed that I held a false memory. In a lot of ways, it was serendipitous, because I held no intent to review the material with the goal of seeing if my memories were false or not.

So, I believe if an individual is found to have a false belief, then learning of the false belief will be a serendipitous event for the individual.

The next issue is dealing with law…

While I was dating Danny, I wrote about an experience that happened to her. However, there is a level of paranoia in writing about such experiences, because an individual does not want to be found out or caught because of illegal activity. However, in the situation with Danny, I was not the victim and I was not the attacker. I was a witness to the event, but I did nothing illegal: Although I could have reported it, this would have also meant that Danny would have gone to jail for doing illegal drugs. As such, I did not report it.

I did, however, write about it in a journal.

As such, for an individual who is prone to false memories, a journal would be the best way to prevent false memories from occurring. However, if an individual commits a crime, there becomes a problem with writing down why things happened. If an individual plans on committing a crime, there is also a problem with writing it down. If an individual witnesses a crime, there is a problem with writing it down, but not as much. However, if an individual does witness a crime (or believes he or she witnesses a crime or something that should be considered a crime), then the best thing a person can do is report it, especially if the individual was not involved with any criminal activity.

However, an individual may not be so interested in reporting the activity, especially if the individual does not have a large knowledge of criminal or civil law. As such, this can become a flaw in an individual’s thinking, thus preventing the individual from writing something down. However, if an individual is paranoid of being “caught” for something, then it would be reasonable to have a diary, have encryption on it, and hope that you don’t forget the password. However, if an individual does forget the password, that means there is a high level of severity in the memory repression and false memory. One could only hope that someday there is a security hacker who finds a way to crack past the password. However, that requires human resources. Depending on the severity of the crime will depend on the severity of resources thrown at cracking the password; and depending on the severity of the crime, there will be a level of repression.

All it would take, then, if for an individual to go through the seven-step process written above for false memories to be generated.

The reason I’ve listed schizoaffective disorder is because I consider it a kind of temporary insanity diagnosis. The individual has undergone a psychotic break, the individual has undergone dysphoric mania, and the individual has held a delusion (even though it may be unknown that it is a false memory) for more than two weeks (thus, the individual has been psychotic all along until the false memory has been noticed). The insanity ends when the individual recovers the false memory.

Until then, the individual is psychotic. However, is not to say that the individual holds a high level of psychosis, because psychosis often involves delusions and hallucinations. The reason I say this is not a high level of psychosis is because the individual is able to function. As such, the person is a high-functioning schizoaffective individual. If the individual is unable to hold a high-functioning life, then the individual would more than likely degenerate into a social monster.

As such, I have a view for what allows an individual to be high-functioning. This would be dependent on the individual’s training as a child in morality: right and wrong. Sure, determinism says that’s garbage and only consequentialism exists… But what I’m going to discuss here is Ribot’s law.

Ribot’s law states that memories that are strongly embedded into an individual, which would be memories developed at an early age, are less likely to be forgotten. As such, an individual who continues to recall such a memory developed at an early age is likely to strengthen the memory over time. As such, as a memory is strengthened, it is less likely to be lost.

Ribot’s Law of retrograde amnesia was hypothesized in 1881 by Théodule Ribot. It states that there is a time gradient in retrograde amnesia, so that recent memories are more likely to be lost than the more remote memories. Not all patients suffering from retrograde amnesia report the symptoms of Ribot’s Law.

source: Wikipedia

So, an individual who remembers being punished for a particular deed at a young age may wrap that memory around that deed, thus that memory and the punishment strengthens the individual’s personality and moral framework.

One may consider that an individual who is punished and abused for misdeeds as a child may become a righteous individual. However, that righteous individual may harass, intimidate, and smackdown people who appear to be doing wrong. I have a best friend who had a very Christian mother who would use a paddle on him and his sisters while they grew up. As such, he is a righteous guy, but he does not appear to take bullshit or crap from people; and he will bitch and complain about it.

I do the same, actually, as I come from a Catholic background. My punishments were different but many of them were physical to the point of abuse.

The following are my opinions and not to be taken as a measure of my character. This is but a blog. Feel free to read this blog entry at your own risk. I do not claim to be a professional on any of these views. Many of the views discussed are speculations.

In relation to reading about James Holmes, it would appear that dealing with dysphoric mania can be a difficult task. It is a kind of mania that can make an individual have episodes of depression, rage, anger, and lose control. It becomes an overwhelming state of mind whereby an individual attempts to regain control of his or her personhood.

It is unfortunate that I could not write about this back in 2011. I had an individual who sent me a garbage mafia threat. Furthermore, I had attempted to write about false memories as a logic error, too. It would appear that many individuals are ignorant and arrogant in their ways of living.

If an individual is dealing with dysphoric mania, there first thing to do is recognize it as dysphoric mania. Diagnosing the situation is the first step. The main problem with this kind of situation is that you start to lose grip on your control, and you feel as though you have lost control over some part of your life, that you have failed in some way.

Despite failure being part of the human existence, the emotional aspects that bring the dysphoric mania are the hardest to control. It is one thing to lose control of a situation which brings on the dysphoric mania. It is a more difficult problem to take hold of the dysphoric mania. The dysphoric mania may also involve some level of confusion, retrograde amnesia with a variable rate of change, and eventual repression.

I’ve experienced this my self, and I was going to write about it in 2011. It is only unfortunate that I did not. I should have taken on the action to do this long ago.

What may lead to dysphoric mania, however, many be one of many psychological or psychiatric disorders. Psychosis, paranoid beliefs, delusional disorders, false memories, and bi-polar disorder may be of the things that lead to dysphoric mania.

As such, it would be useful for an individual to take the time to develop a journal or timeline of their personal life history if they find themselves forgetting who they are. Furthermore, in re-discovering themselves they may notice they have blanks in their life history. As such, it may become useful to recognize they have forgotten who they are, talk to their family, talk to their friends, and review any digital footprints or analog materials from their pasts to regain a sense of their identity. As such, a loss of identity would be similar to dissociative fugue.

I had experienced dissociative fugue once in my life. I woke up one morning while in bed, asked myself, “Who am I?”

And I had forgotten my name but for part of the day. As the day went on, I recalled my name. I knew I had particular things I had to do that day, so I did them without much recall of who I was. It did not appear to matter too much who I was. All I knew is that I had business to take care of. Despite an individual forgetting his or her personal identity, an individual may want to find resources to remind themselves.

I believe in the case of James Holmes, he underwent dysphoric mania after failing his preliminary exam. This may have been due to him expecting too much of himself. Furthermore, it is considered that he had a variety of online identities, whereby making him susceptible to slipping into another identity.

Regardless, what will cause the dysphoric mania is an emotionally distressing trigger. It may be an emotional distress that develops over time. As such, an individual will need to find ways to disarm these emotionally distressing triggers. Otherwise, if an individual cannot disarm these emotionally distressing aspects, the individual may go into psychosis, thus leading toward a dysphoric mania. Once the dysphoric mania occurs, the individual may have trouble in regaining control of his or her mind. Furthermore, an individual may repress what the emotional triggers were, thus repressing memories associated with the emotional triggers. As such, with the repression, an individual may forget who they are, thus going into dissociative fugue. If dissociative fugue occurs, a person may take on a new identity and whatever memories or skills that remain may integrate into the new identity.

However, dissociative fugue should not really occur to a high level of extremes, because an individual obviously has to have an identity to go about particular kinds of business transactions, whereby a motive and name must be used in order to achieve particular goes.

In the case that dysphoric mania cannot be controlled, an individual would have to maintain enough rationalization to not commit acts of violence, as that would only cause more trouble for an individual. However, an individual prone to rage, such as the narcissist who believe he or she is entitled to particular things and has been greatly insulted, may feel the need to lash out. A lack of training in being humble and taking on acts of humiliation would do well for the narcissist. A lack of such training can also mean problems in socialization, as an individual may feel superior to others, thus causing problems in social interactions.

As such, I believe that has been the issue with James Holmes.

James Holmes was making a transition toward narcissism. He had difficulty in finding love for himself, so he became more wrapped up in his studies. His studies interfered with his ability to socialize, thus leaning him toward other desires, such as sexual promiscuity and prostitutes. His inability to feel comfortable in his own life led to emotional distressing aspects that triggered dysphoric mania. The dysphoric mania led to bouts of rage, eventually repression, and depersonalization as coping-mechanisms. By the time he gathered the weapons he felt were necessary to conduct his violent task, he had met a checkpoint whereby his personality dissociated and he became The Joker.

Determinism exists.

It is unusual that a neuroscientist would go about killing some dudes. He probably just needed to really take time off from school. He more than likely held high expectations from himself. One of the things about higher education is that you learn to accept the bullshit as it is. You learn to become robotic in what you do. And that especially comes with HIGHER forms of education and research. If you cannot learn to detach from your emotions to accomplish the work that needs to be done, then you cannot get that work done. As such, I think James Holmes focused way too much on his emotions. He may have become emotional at some point in his education and decided he wanted some kind of change whereby he felt more human.

He did drop out, though… so it’s as if that is a sign that he wanted change in his life. However, as he had developed explosives months beforehand, he obviously had the dysphoric mania for quite some time.

I think his real problem was a lack of humility of truth-seeking behavior. I’ve noticed this amongst a variety of colleagues who are neuroscientists: They’re arrogant and care about money.

It causes a variety of personality problems, yet they think I have issues.

However, I’ve had a variety of loving relationships, sexual relationships, and been punked by people of my past plenty of times. As such, I have a high tolerance to being emotionally distressed these days. The ability to deal with the emotional triggers is related to how well an individual can tolerate the emotionally distressing triggers. It would appear that he could not tolerate the emotionally distressing trigger of failing his pre-liminary exam and not finding a decent relationship. The irony is that his educational background gave him decreased sociability skills, thus an inability to find a DECENT relationship.

Personally, I’ve understood how balancing school and a social life can be difficult. I’ve also come across various COMPLETE BITCHES while undertaking schoolwork. And these are women who I’ve come across who are mentally unstable, antagonistic, egoist, and rejecting. As such, there are many women who are not worth dating, to say the least. It goes along with the idea that if a woman isn’t married by her 30s, then there is something wrong with her: There is some truth to that in that a woman more than likely has really high standards or has mental issues.

I reason he came across women with high standards or mental issues. A lack of knowledge in identifying these women, noticing “red flags,” and not knowing when to GIVE UP on such women can cause an emotionally distressing situation. I had dealt with such in my late teens and early 20s. That’s when I learned to change my standards on women, not that I raised my standards; but I learned to appreciate what I got and learn to love it. The worst case was when I began to love a woman who had a lot of health complications, and she ditched me for some guy who cheated on her…. I was really annoyed with her, and I distanced myself from her; I did not forgive her nor did she want forgiveness. I gave up on her. I did not stress out about it, but I gave her a dirty look the last time I saw her. She was surprised by it, but she did not say anything to me: She actually was kind of surprised that I acted that way, but I believe she understood why I thought and acted that way. In other words, she was a woman who held high standards, and I supposedly did not fit them.

When I moved to Chicago, things were great. I met all kinds of women. The social atmosphere allowed for ease of making and breaking social relationships. After dating a few women in school, I learned to date women out of school, as a small social atmosphere, such as academia, allowed for discrimination, bogus claims of harassment, and ostracizing behavior from my peers: It was distressing and extremely conservative behavior. But I learned from that point in such a conservative environment that things are high-risk, and if a person doesn’t want anything to do with you, you HAVE to let go or face discrimination, bogus claims of harassment, and ostracizing behavior. In larger groups, the effect would be diminished, thus less emotionally distressing.

I think the guy had trouble socializing, which led to a lot of problems.

There should be a class in high school: Teaching how to look for red flags in dating and social relationships in order to prevent discrimination.

That would solve a lot of problems.

Were James Holmes issue in relation to love, I’ve come across a book that seemed to talk about dysphoric mania and love.

The Love Trauma Syndrome: Free Yourself From The Pain Of A Broken Heart

By Richard B. Rosse

It goes into dysphoric mania somewhat. I would not say that because an individual has dysphoric mania that an individual is bipolar. However, I have read that it is common for bipolar individuals to have dysphoric mania.

From my reading, it gives the impression that dysphoric mania can come about from a “love trauma.”
In other words, some kind of traumatic loss can cause the dysphoric mania. Losing a loved one can be traumatic, but I have read that dissociating after the experience is unusual. Again, this relates to love trauma.

As of late, I have come across the fact that I had a false memory in my biomemory. Misattribution occurred during recall. I have conducted a fair amount of research as of late on false memories. This was conducted in order to interpret whether or not I was fooling myself into believing false memories exist or if there is a scientific basis for it. As such, I became more interested in research by Kenneth S. Pope and his take on it: Memory, Abuse, and Science: Questioning Claims about the False Memory Syndrome Epidemic

I do not doubt that memories fade with time. Furthermore, I do not doubt that an individual can misattribute an experience of an event or person to another individual or event. In the realm of neuroscience, the ability to recall particular memories is related to a forgetting curve. A forgetting curve can be defined to hold various properties. For instance, let us assume that I hold memories of a woman I used to sleep with. Let us say that I keep a journal of the events and memories associated with this woman. As I keep a journal, I develop multiple choice questions of events held with that woman; however, I also make choices that relate to events I had experienced with other women. The catch is, however, that I can never look back at the old entries. Now, the amount of time between quizzing myself will either help keep the memories fresh or degrade them. As is often commonly thought in cognitive science, as the time increases between recall, a person is more prone to error. This is why “spacing” is important as a psychological concept: Wikipedia: Spacing effect

Now, this would be a fair experiment. However, what makes a false memory interesting is what increases the ability to generate a false memory. In the situation I had encountered, I was coming across information of two women with similar names. Furthermore, I had come across information whereby the women had both worked at the same company (Hot Topic). I had come across information that reminded me both were into a gothic/subculture scene. I had information that reminded me of their drug usage. I had sexual experiences with both women. I talked on the phone with both women. I talked online with both women. Both women had parents who appeared to be dysfunctional.

Surely, it could seem as though they were dopplegangers of each other. The phenomena of misattribution may be similar to the experience of dealing with people who are twins. It can be difficult to differentiate between the twins until you get to know the finer details of them, such as the fact that they wear different eyeglasses (I have had this experience). Were they to switch eyeglasses, they could fool you if that were the only thing that made them different. However, what would be more definitive in making them different, however, would be the memories you have shared with them. Were the twins to be quite the deviant two and discussed their memories they experienced with you, or the twins were to have access to each others’ diaries, then one could impersonate the other and trick you quite well.

As such, there were general and specific details that allowed these women to be differentiated. It would be the specific details of the women that allowed me to discern between them. With this in mind, an individual could create a Venn diagram in order to tease apart who is who. In my situation, there occurred a semantic similarity between two women of my past. This more than likely was the aspect that allowed various memories to integrate into a synthetic person.

As such, this brings into the idea that a false memory can be a type of logic error.

In computer programming, a logic error is a bug in a program that causes it to operate incorrectly, but not to terminate abnormally (or crash). A logic error produces unintended or undesired output or other behavior, although it may not immediately be recognized as such.

Logic errors occur in both compiled and interpreted languages. Unlike a program with a syntax error, a program with a logic error is a valid program in the language, though it does not behave as intended. The only clue to the existence of logic errors is the production of wrong solutions.

A logic error may make an individual repeat behaviors that initially caused the logic error. The logic error does not make it so you have a stroke or psychological breakdown. However, it can often be said that a false memory correlates with having repressed memories, which represents the idea that trauma occurred at some point in time. As such, as with a logic error, you may attempt to fall within behaviors that allowed the traumatic memory to disappear. As such, if a person had drank a lot of alcohol in an attempt to to cope with problems of the past, an individual may start drinking alcohol again upon recognizing the false memory that correlates with traumatic experiences of the past. And this may fuel the individual into a downward spiral.

Personally, upon recalling more facts of the past, I began to drink alcohol… I also did something peculiar in that I started eating salsa with my eggs again. This may have generated some form of repetition compulsion during the time I was very big into Mexican-American women and Spanish culture. The Irish-American in me likes alcohol along with sexy and Catholic Latina woman. I had long forgotten my attraction toward Catholic Latina women. I still held an attraction to Latina women, but I had tied whatever memories I had of my attraction to them to times in my childhood at grade school and middle school: I had forgotten about my attraction to them, because I had sexual experiences with such women and found their religiosity and physical appearance to be extremely appealing.

I can recall in the past year smoking 420 with a Latina/Mexican-American woman, her boyfriend, and another gentleman in the gentleman’s kitchen. I was extremely attracted to her. However, I considered that it was her bubbly personality that made her attractive. I also considered that she was devoted to her boyfriend, as I had asked him how long they had been together. However, at no time did I attribute her personality to the Latina/Mexican-American women of my past.

As I had told one of her friends of whom I was spending time with the next day, I wanted to fuck the hell out of the Latina chick… of course… She had a boyfriend, seemed like a nice girl, and it would not seem right to interfere in such a relationship. However, there was a high sexual attraction that was not easy to explain. It is only good that I held no repression or false memories of how evil, immoral, and unethical rape is. I could never forget the fact that someone had raped an ex-girlfriend of mine as she cried on the phone for counsel; I hung up; I had considered that she was having another panic attack. I did not know she had just been raped.

However, it can be difficult to determine if an individual has a false memory. The only way an individual can determine if he or she has a false memory is to be notified of such a false memory. The individual needs to be told that something is wrong with their memory and recall. The individual has a logic error. However, one can more than likely not determine that he or she has a logic error.

As such, an individual with a logic error may undergo a form of repetition compulsion or “looping” until the individual is halted from such activities. In my case, I got slapped with a legal case against me (claiming I was harassing her or mentally ill). Furthermore, after talking to the woman with attributes of drug abuse of whom I had as an ex-girlfriend, she… interestingly… told me to stop insulting her when I had made no insults (at least none of which were obvious to me).

In the realm of computer science, this can relate to the halting problem.

The halting problem is a decision problem about properties of computer programs on a fixed Turing-complete model of computation, i.e. all programs that can be written in some given programming language that is general enough to be equivalent to a Turing machine. The problem is to determine, given a program and an input to the program, whether the program will eventually halt when run with that input. In this abstract framework, there are no resource limitations on the amount of memory or time required for the program’s execution; it can take arbitrarily long, and use arbitrarily much storage space, before halting. The question is simply whether the given program will ever halt on a particular input.

For example, in pseudocode, the program:

loop forever

does not halt; rather, it goes on forever in an infinite loop. On the other hand, the program

print “Hello, world!”

halts very quickly.

While deciding whether these programs halt is simple, more complex programs prove problematic.

One approach to the problem might be to run the program for some number of steps and check if it halts. But if the program does not halt, it is unknown whether the program will eventually halt or run forever.

Turing proved there cannot exist an algorithm which will always correctly decide whether, for a given arbitrary program and its input, the program halts when run with that input; the essence of Turing’s proof is that any such algorithm can be made to contradict itself, and therefore cannot be correct.

Halting in a lot of ways would be termination of a situation or inhibition of the problem. I am guessing I got it from both women with semantically similar names.

And because I consider that a false memory is similar to a logic error, then it is fair to say that the way to get rid of the logic error is to use self-debugging.

Self-debugging can be used as a preventive step or a step after the logic error output has occurred. However, to know that self-debugging must occur, one must attempt to analyze internal data (memories) before attempting to generate an output. However, the problem with a false memory is that the memory is strongly believed. As such, an individual may be inhibited from attempting to analyze their own memories. Furthermore, if the false memory is tied to traumatic events, the individual may have a flashback, thus involuntary control of memory may occur when interacting with that which gave them the traumatic memory. This is what occurred to me: I encountered someone from my past that I had tied many traumatic memories to. Part of me was in control, and part of me was not.

Self-debugging did not occur until I was told that memories recalled of the individual were incorrect by the individual. Although I found their legal action against me to be inappropriate, upon the hearing, it came to my notice that I held incorrect views about the individual. However, at no time did I attempt to publicly defame or slander the individual, which is why I considered the legal action to be inappropriate. Simple communication and argumentation would have done well enough, as I am a neuroscientist and have encountered enough philosophical and psychological literature in order to make sense of my cognitive error. It just shows you how much the women in my hometown of Rockford, Illinois are stupid bitches.

In one embodiment the present invention includes a computer-implemented method of self debugging a computer program operating in a distributed processing environment. The method includes detecting a fault in a plurality of processing devices and classifying the fault according to fault classifications. The fault classifications have corresponding responses. The method further includes executing one of the responses in accordance with the fault having been classified. The method further includes revising the computer program according to the response. This method may be embodied in a computer program or executed by a computer system. In this manner, the computer program performs self debugging.

As such, the individual (other agent in the computer system) was the individual of whom I told off, while thinking she was an ex-girlfriend. The computer system is the real-world. As such, via a distributed network whereby another agent would be able to notice a false memory or “logic error,” there was an enabled ability to correct the error. However, the other agent in the computer system did not correct the error; the other agent simply notified me that there was an error, whereby I would go about fixing it.

However, to go about fixing it, then I would need to do a few things, but the main thing would be the following:
1) Identify the correct information and attribute it to the correct source

However, with one of the individuals (of whom I misattributed memories to) having a legal case against me, then I would need to extract the information from the other individual of whom I had misattributed memories from. This was conducted. However, this was conducted before telling the other individual that another individual put a legal case against me. Once the legal case was mentioned, the individual of whom I misattributed memories from did not want to get involved. As such, determining the attribution of the information became difficult.

The interesting point to be made is that I used to have information relating to both individuals. This may be a sociotechnical complication. As these individuals were met online, I had online information relating to both individuals. As such, the need to commit the information to memory was not as necessary.

Research has been conducted on this and has related it to the Google effect.

The Google effect is the tendency to forget information that can be easily found using internet search engines such as Google, instead of remembering it.

The phenomenon was described and named by Betsy Sparrow (Columbia), Jenny Liu (Wisconsin) and Daniel M. Wegner (Harvard) in July 2011.[1][2]

As an aside, as a long time Internet user, I had noticed the Google effect years before the term became popularized. I reason many other people have, too.

However, what is so different is that a few things occurred in the time that had passed. For one thing, the online journal I had, which was at greatestjournal.com, closed down. However, before that occurred, I saved many of my journal entries and emailed them to myself. However, I had an email filter that deleted many things related to Person A. As such, when I attempted to look for my journal entries, I could not find them. Either they are in one of my email addresses, or those journal entries are completely gone. Drat, too, as I had an email from Kevin Warwick when I emailed him as cyberia_black@yahoo.com. Also, Yahoo has deleted many other individuals emails.

As such, the ability to recall information about Person A became limited, as I did not take enough time to commit the memories of Person A to memory.

Now, I did have memories of Person B. I fell asleep with Person B. I may or may not have forgotten that I fell asleep with Person B. At the moment, telling whether or not I did is difficult, as I did not initially make a Venn diagram of what I knew and did not know about Person A and Person B before embarking on a self-debugging journey. As such, I am biased.

In reference to Person B, nonetheless, I had collected her journal entries. I also collected pictures of her. It is fair to say that I was enamored with her. However, I also collected pictures of other women and people I have known throughout time. At one point in time, if I remember correctly, I believe I lost a lot of those pictures and journal entries, as I attempted to put Windows 2000 on my Windows XP box, or at least have a dual-install, as I was tired of dealing with Windows XP. It was at that point that I lost a lot of pictures and entries about her. However, at the time, I had the ability to commit various URLs to memory. As such, I was able to recall who she was by her pseudonym.

So, yes, a false memory may be a more recent social phenomenon. However, I believe it is that false memories have been possible for a long time. What makes false memories so different is that there is more capability for them to be recognized by increased technological communication. This is what sets apart the modern world from Kenneth Pope’s pre-1800 world.

Now, a person may be wondering what really made me confuse Person B with Person A: What was the process?

0) Person B was encountered but not interacted with in 2004 or 2005.

Person B was met at a location that had punk bands. Person B was dressed emo/goth.

1) Person A told me a lot of lies about her person from 2005 to 2006.

She was an ex-girlfriend. She was a rape victim. She had drug abuse problems. She told me her parents did cocaine. She told me she had experiences with being homeless. She was somewhat gothic/punk. She had an online journal. We spent time talking to each other on the phone.

She told me a lot of lies about her person (I have email evidence), which may have begun the process to make me susceptible to a false memory. I was also on Seroquel XR, which may have begun the process to make me susceptible to a false memory.

2) Person A and I stopped talking in 2006: I had developed an email filter to ignore her in 2005 or 2006

I was moody, annoyed, and angry that we stopped spending time together. She was familiar with my outbursts, as I had been on Seroquel XR medication.

3) Person B and I met in 2006 or 2007

Person B had a name similar to Person A. Person B and I had a friends-with-benefits relationship (she was like a girlfriend for a short period of time). She had told me about how someone tried to rape her. She had told me about a movie she liked that made her not want to do drugs. She was somewhat gothic/punk. She had an online journal. We spent time talking to each other on the phone. These are general aspects, but I have recalled the finer details as of late.

I was moody, annoyed, and angry when we stopped spending time together.

Also, the recession took more hold in 2007.

4) Person A and Person B still kept an online journal

As such, I was able to discern between them.

5) Person A and Person B stopped having online journals.

I still had my journal entries and pictures of both of them. However, I was becoming dependent on my own knowledge of the two individuals in order to discern them apart.

6) I lost my journal entries and pictures of both of them. (2009 or 2010)

I stopped reminding myself of Person A, and I had lost my pictures of Person B. Materials related to Person A became scattered throughout my various online storage areas. In October of 2009, I had a panic disorder: The day before the onset of the panic disorder, I had thought about Person B a lot. The panic disorder lasted from October of 2009 to about February of 2010.

7) A legal encounter occurred with Person B (2010)

I reported Person B and her boyfriend to authorities for drug abuse and threatening me. As there was also a mafia threat against me, I got rid of whatever I had on Person B. I commit everything else to memory. (At least I think this occurred, but I have yet to go check it out.)

By this time, I had been trained to generalize about large amounts of information in order to abstract from it in order to determine the specifics of the information. This was further pounded into my head during the time I studied Organic Chemistry II (in 2011).

8: A traumatic event occurred (2011)

Person B’s boyfriend died after being released from jail: He had an overdose of heroin. I felt that reporting them should not have occurred. I worried that people might take revenge on me.

9) I started dating a new girlfriend (2011)

By the time I started dating a new girlfriend, I stopped stressing out as much. I was also out of my hometown. I wanted to forget my past and move on. I kept quiet about my activities. Eventually, I fell in love with my new girlfriend and stopped thinking about the past as much. I had mostly forgotten about Person A and Person B. As such, this is where the forgetting curve dramatically decreases. The answer to the initial question I had obsessed about from 2007 to 2010 was also forgotten: Why did she leave me?

The answer: To go do hard drugs with some guy.
Fascinatingly, I forgot that fact.

10) I encounter Person B again in 2012

I chew out Person B while misattributing aspects of Person A to Person B (2012)

Memory recalled if present tense:

I come across Person B while she is still working at Hot Topic. I do not recognize her. She looked familiar. I could not put my finger on it. I looked at her name tag and thought to myself, “I had a girlfriend named Person A/B.”

However, Person B asked, “Is your name _____.”

I was stunned! I was caught off guard.
I did not know how she knew my name. Then she told me that we used to talk on Myspace.

I am then asked by my girlfriend, as her and I leave the store, at the time who she is. I say that she is an ex-girlfriend. Unfortunately for me, at some point in time, I picked up the knowledge and fact that Person A held a work history at Hot Topic (more than likely during the time I was adding people to my linkedin) in 2006. I had forgotten when Person A and Person B started work at Hot Topic by the time I met Person B in 2012 while I was with my girlfriend at the time.

* Note: Interestingly, I do not feel comfortable in the store while there. I figured it was because I’m ADD and get bored, along with the fact that there was nothing I really wanted to buy. However, it could have been relative to the fact that I held a false memory, was not interested in it being challenged, and so I unconsciously avoided the situation. However, I was busy talking with my girlfriend and more stressed over some stuff relating to an ex-girlfriend (Person M) who was trying to ruin my life. I dismissed the encounter with Person B, ignored it, and did not give it much more thought: I repressed it.

In October of 2012, I have an online conversation with Person B. A person on behalf of Person B gets confrontational with me. The next thing I know, I have a legal case against me.

First, I’m annoyed. As the first hearing occurs, I get really confused and somewhat freaked out. After that, I stay awake for four days straight, which may have been a rebound effect of the Seroquel XR or that I was seriously spooked, which is rare for me. By the time the second hearing occurs, I recall a lot more. By the time that is over with, I eventually catch on and recall what is all going on, because after the second hearing, I see the obituary for her old boyfriend again… and then it all starts coming back to me.

—-

So, what would a forgetting curve look like? What would the mathematics of this situation look like?

As with the mathematics, it could also be applied to the Venn diagram. I’m sure a more complex Venn diagram with blending of generalizations and specifics could be observed throughout time, whereby specific details and knowledge of each individual becomes more blurred as time progressing and forgetting occurs. As such, an initial Venn Diagram would have both circles being separate. However, as time passes, the circles combine more and more. Forgetting of specific details that separate the two circles is what enables them to blend, thus generating a false memory (synthetic person).

However, the real question is what happens to the Venn diagram when a person starts forgetting general aspects and specific details can no longer be developed or recalled? Well, if a person forgets the general information, then there is less general information to recall, thus increasing the probability an individual relies on specific information.

For Person A and Person B, the person can always move to a new location. The person can always change religions. Also, a person can always change a home. However, there are particular things that you cannot change about yourself.

You cannot change your race.
You cannot change your parents.

I guess in this way, and perhaps it’s why she was smiling when she was standing next to me, you could say that I’m a racist. lol.

Well, I’m definitely not blind. However, in my defense, in my time in Chicago, Illinois, I became more blind to race. More people were “Americanized.” More people who were not Caucasian spoke in a Midwest accent. That is more than likely because they were second or third generation Americans from their parents’ heritage. In Rockford, Illinois, many people “act black,” or if they are Spanish or something else, they have an accent, which is extremely annoying. It’s as if they got off the plane. In Chicago, many black people will talk with a Midwest accent. To not do so is extremely annoying and shows a degenerate-like quality in that individual’s personality. So, I do not think it is right to say that I am a racist. However, the forgetting curve I developed those involve the time I spent in Chicago, Illinois; from 2009 to 2012. As such, that could be a sign that I became less racist as I spent more time in Chicago, Illinois. I’m not racist. I discriminate against people with accents; not that I penalize or punish them, but I sure do not spend a lot of time with them, as I find that communication in the spoken word becomes highly impractical and requires a lot of time for a learning curve to develop.

However, in defense against a racist claim, I’ve known two white women with similar names: Brandi and Brandy. However, both of them tend to have similar hair color. I went to college with both of them. One difference is that I spent time talking to Brandi on the phone; I never spent time talking to Brandy on the phone. Then again, Brandi and I spent time at a bar with Person B. As such, this may have given further growth to my ability to confuse the two.

What allows me to discern between them is their last names. Seeing them in person, I could point out what memories I have of each individual. However, the Google Effect did not take place, because I never had to get rid of information in relation to either of them, such as pictures. Furthermore, I’ve been online friends with them. As such, continued stimuli existed as to prevention of forgetting who they are and mixing them up.

Now, the question becomes, was I harassing her?

I know of when I would be harassing someone. I know of when I’m in a competition with someone, or I have to fight or compete with someone, because that person is harassing me or attempting to control me when I do not want that person to control me. As such, I know when I’m telling someone off. However, that does not mean I know when I’m telling someone off while holding a false memory of that person.

Was I telling her off? No.

I was not telling her off, because I had a false memory of her person in mind.
However, it did become the case that I was telling her off, because it was HER who was told off.

Did I hold a false memory of her? Yes.

As such, how do you correct a false memory?

1) Identify that you have a false memory

This can either be conducted by finding old evidence of the memory or an individual informing you that you hold a false memory.

2) Develop a list of things that you know about something; be honest with yourself

Put the list of things in one column.

3) Make a Venn diagram with two circles overlapping each other. Have the list of things in the middle. Label the middle in as few words as possible with who or what you believe the list to describe.

Tease apart what you know about that list of things and determine if they are true or false. If they are true, keep them there. If they are false, place them outside of the Venn diagram. These are beliefs you have that belong somewhere else (if anywhere at all). Determining if they are false is dependent on whether or not you can find the historicity relating to the beliefs or facts.

If something is false but strongly believed, it may be associated with someone or something else. Determine if there is a semantic, lexical, or conceptual relationship with beliefs about that person or event and someone else or some other event. It may help to put things in a historical perspective in order to determine the historicity of something or someone.

Is there another person of whom the concept or memory is associated with?
Is there another event of which the concept or memory is associated with?

Example: I thought Person B was on social security at some point. However, Person B had told me about a potential rape issue she encountered with Person H. Person H was someone I knew in high school. Person H was on social security and still is. As such, I may have misattributed the memory of Person H’s social security situation to Person B’s income status.

As such, there may become a blossom and re-write of facts. A redrafting of a Venn diagram could give many other possibilities of where thoughts go and belong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram

Eventually, things will get sorted out or left out of the picture entirely.

My more definite one looks like this:

Now, there is some truth that Venn diagrams did not come around until 1880. Harrison Pope had a challenge that wanted people to find media that existed before 1800 that involved a false memory. However, it could be possible that individuals did not have the technological advantage to understand the fact that they had a false memory. As such, it did not become more practical until Venn diagrams came about that false memories could be understood. Furthermore, as Venn diagrams are based on probabilistic models and logic, models on probability did not start coming around until the 1650s. As such, if an individual had a false memory and was educated, he or she may have been able to use probability to determine whether or not something was “probable.” It could be argued that an individual could have used heuristics, however.

Harrison G. Pope, Jr., M.D., M.P.H.
James I. Hudson, M.D., Sc.D.

$1000 reward to anyone who can produce a published case of “repressed memory” (in fiction or non-fiction) prior to 1800

Our research suggests that the concept of “repressed memory” or “dissociative amnesia” might be simply a romantic notion dating from the 1800s, rather than a scientifically valid phenomenon. To test this hypothesis, we are offering a reward of $1000 to the first person who can find a description of “repressed memory” in any written work, either nonfiction or fiction (novels, poems, dramas, epics, the Bible, essays, medical treatises, or any other sources), in English or in any work that has been translated into English, prior to 1800. We would argue that if “repressed memory” were a genuine natural phenomenon that has always affected people, then someone, somewhere, in the thousands of years prior to 1800, would have witnessed it and portrayed it in a non-fictional work or in a fictional character.

To qualify as a bona fide case, the individual described in the work must: 1) experience a severe trauma (abuse, sexual assault, a near-death
experience, etc.); and 2) develop amnesia for that trauma for months or years afterwards (i.e. be clearly unable to remember the traumatic event as opposed to merely denying or avoiding the thought); where 3) the amnesia cannot be explained by biological factors, such as a) early childhood amnesia — in which the individual was under age five at the time of the trauma, or b) neurological impairment due to head injury, drug or alcohol intoxication, or biological diseases. Also, the individual must 4) “recover” the lost memory at some later time, even though the individual had previously been unable to access the memory. Finally, note 5) that the individual must selectively forget a traumatic event; amnesia for an entire period of time, or amnesia for non-traumatic events does not qualify.

There are numerous examples of “repressed memory” in fiction and nonfiction after 1800. A literary example that fulfills all of the above criteria is Penn, in Rudyard Kipling’s 1896 novel, Captains Courageous, who develops complete amnesia for having lost his entire family in a tragic flood. He later goes to work as a fisherman on a Grand Banks schooner. On one occasion, after a tragic collision between an ocean liner and another schooner at sea, Penn suddenly recovers his lost memory of the flood and the death of his family, and recounts the story to other members of the crew.

At present, we have been unable to find any cases of “repressed memory,” meeting the above criteria, in any work prior to 1800. We offer a prize of $1000 to the first person who can do so. Please contact us with any questions or candidate cases at harrisonpope@mclean.harvard.edu

The first successful respondent, if any, will receive a check for $1000 from the Biological Psychiatry Laboratory, and the successful case will be posted on this website. In the event of any dispute (i.e., a respondent who disagrees with us as to whether a case meets the above 5 criteria), Scott Lukas, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry (Pharmacology) at Harvard Medical School, has agreed to arbitrate. Dr. Lukas has no involvement in the debate surrounding “repressed memory” and has never published in this area; thus he represents an impartial arbitrator. We have agreed to abide by Dr. Lukas’ decision in the case of any dispute.

What I would want to see, then is an example of repressed memory before the 1650s, as that is when probability models started to come more into play. The artistic work, Nina, was the work that existed before the 1800s that showed memory repression. However, Nicolas Dalayrac, the individual who made Nina, was a … ready? … lawyer…

As such, it is curious to see if an individual could develop a social networking diagram of individuals of whom Nicolas Dalayrac associated with in an attempt to determine of whom he knew that carried a false or repressed memory. As I am stating to believe, an individual who has a false or repressed memory also knows another individual who holds or has a repressed memory…

Why do I think that?

… because Person B does not have many memories of me.

This simple fact could hold a lot of repercussions for society. As such, there exists a flaw in society that a continual logic error exists. This may be what is responsible for violence in society. This may be the reason that wars occur. It may be the reason for domestic violence. It may be the reason people cheat, lie, and steal…

Dangerous knowledge, for sure.

For those who read this from start to finish… what was the first name of Pope?